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290 Credibility of the Gospel History.
Maiiichees. Tillemont'^ mentions divers other reasons for
thinking- that Secundinus lived at Rome, or somewhere in
Italy. Nor Avas this letter written so soon as the year 390;
it is probable that Augustine would not so long delay to
answer it; but in his Retractations he speaks of his answer
after his books against Faustus, and after the disputes held
with Felix in the year 404, and after another book against
the Manichees, entitled De Natura Boni. The character too
which Augustine himself gives of his answer, as*^ the best
of all his books against the Manichees, leads us to suppose
it was one of his last works written in that controversy. In
a word, the order in which this book is placed, and the
manner in which Augustine speaks of it, may induce us to
think it was not written before 405 or 406.
V. ' The^ Manichcean sect, or church,' as Augustine's
phrase is, ' consisted of two parts, elect and auditors.' He
afterwards says: ' As*^ Mani had twelve disciples, in imita-
' tion of the twelve apostles, that number is still respected
' by the Manichees : for there are twelve of their elect, whom
' they call masters; and there is a thirteenth who is their
' president : they have seventy-two bishops ordained by the
' masters, and presbyters ordained by bishops. Their
' bishops likewise have deacons: the rest are called elect only
' but when they are judged fit, they also are sent abroad,
' either for upholding and spreading their error where it is
' already, or for planting it where it is not.'
That we may the better judge of this division of the Manichees
into elect and auditors, it is needful to take notice of
some passages of divers authors.
Epiphanius calls their auditors^ catechumens ; and in The
Acts of Archelaus the second order of the Manichees is''
twice spoken of by the name of catechumens.